The Westfield girls gymnastics team gave head coach Melissa Greenwald the best retirement present she could have ever hoped for; a North Jersey, Section 2 title.

Westfield overcame strong competition to win a title for the first time since 2006, finishing with a final score of 111.025. Bishop Ahr finished in second with 110.650 and Scotch Plains in third with 103.825.

“It’s been my goal for seven years now to take the title back to Westfield,” Greenwald said. “I’m just speechless we were able to do this in my final year.”

On October 18 Greenwald announced that she would retire at the end of the season. Amanda Diaz is taking over for the veteran coach who spent 14 seasons at the helm of Westfield gymnastics. After it was announced that Westfield had finally taken the title back, Greenwald was overcome with emotion as her gymnasts surrounded her.

“I am in total amazement my girls worked so hard today,” Greenwald said. “I wasn’t even sure we were going to get it but the last fourteen years coaching have been amazing and the fact that these girls brought it home to me is just amazing.”

“From the beginning we were doing this for our coach to get the title back so we came in here with the mentality that we were going to work as a team,” Cook said. “We’re just speechless we were able to do this for her,” Rizkalla added.

Rizkalla said that Westfield will use the same tactics to try and have a similar showing in states.

“We plan on doing exactly what we did today in states and plan to work just as hard in states.” Rizkalla said.

Bishop Ahr, behind sophomore Julianna Drapkin who took first place in every event and won individual overall for the second season in a row, will still advance to the NJSIAA team championships in search of an illusive tenth state title.

“It feels great to come out here and win again,” Drapkin said. “I did better in my events this year than I did the previous year.”

Drapkin added two new tricks to her routine, a double pike on floor and a toe shoot catch on bars, that helped her score higher in the events.

“I felt confident coming in here with my two new tricks,” Drapkin said. “I was able to improve a lot which feels good, especially being able to qualify to states I plan to just hit everything in my routines.”